Pages

Monday, November 14, 2011

Purple Ombre Sprinkles Cake

Tomorrow is my birthday, and though I've reached the stage where birthdays don't excite me anymore I thought I would do a fun cake for this week since I didn't have anything else planned. I wanted to do a crazy cake that was 100% just for me, just all the things I loved and have wanted to put into a birthday cake. And that means sprinkles and lots and lots of purple. Enter Steph's crazy purple ombré sprinkles cake with salted buttercream. I've always been in complete awe of all the amazing colourful layered cakes I see on different blogs, especially the gorgeous ones that have the ombré effect. I never though I'd be able to pull off one, it seemed like something that required patience and to be neat and meticulous and I can't do any of that very well. But since this cake was entirely for me, the only person I would be disappointing is myself if I failed so I went for it.

I've had a really bad week. Really bad. At first the thought of baking while in the middle of this horrible week seemed like a terrible idea but then I remembered that baking is my happy place, my therapy. So I pottered around the kitchen and lost myself in this recipe and it really did make me feel better. I used the most reliable yellow cake recipe I knew of, from my Le Cordon Bleu cooking book. It's deliciously buttery, the batter is stable enough to deal with a lot of mixing and the texture and moisture of the cake works well for layered cakes. It's one of the first cakes I ever made while learning to bake. The original cake is for a 3 layered cake, but I split up the mixture into five layers so I could get a good range of purple shading. I only have one 20cm cake tin which meant I had to bake 5 cakes, one after the other, cleaning, regreasing and lining each tin in between. It took a while and took my mind off my crappy week. And it also reminded me once again that I need to buy more cake tins.

I used Wilton colouring gel and it worked absolute wonders. I usually find it's way too hard to to get the perfect shade of purple when using red and blue colouring so I saved myself the trouble and got some violet colouring. I am absolutely in love with the effect of the shading, and surprised that I managed to get the gradient of shading right. I did a little happy dance when I cut into the cake for the first time. And I also chortled smugly at the recent memory of someone who worked at a professional bakery telling me that to get this kind of shading between each layer would require someone to make 60 cake layers before they got it right. Haha whatevs.

I decided to use the leftover blackcurrant jam from my Ribena Cupcakes from last week. I love jam in cakes so much, it keeps them moist and gives it a nice burst of flavour. And it worked great since it was purple too. I used my favourite icing, the simple salted butter icing that I can't stop using recently. I originally was planning to do a crazy bright purple icing but decided to keep it simple and white, to give you the surprise of the bright colour when you cut into the cake. It works so well, as learnt from the epic Whisk Kid rainbow cake that is burned into my memory as the best cake ever. Originally I wanted to cover the entire cake in chocolate freckles because I recently rediscovered my love for them. But when I started to cover the cake in the freckles I realised the cake looked pretty damn ugly, like it was covered in festering warts. Lovely, I know. So I went into full panic mode and ripped off all the freckles and started slapping rainbow sprinkles all over the cake to cover up the mess I'd made. Sprinkles EVERYWHERE. I even found a sprinkle in my belly button when getting changed later. It was a mess, but my cake ended up looking like one giant freckle and that is kinda awesome. It reminded me of this amazing cake from Sprinkle Bakes. And check out the stunning Vanilla Malt Sprinkle Bark Cake Lisa made me! Sprinkles make everything better.

Purple Ombré Sprinkles Birthday Cake(makes one round 18cm 5-layer cake, yellow cake recipe adapted from Le Cordon Bleu Complete Cooking Step-by-Step)Note: Sorry US readers, I didn't have time to measure the ingredients in cups so I could convert the measurements for you, you'll have to convert it yourself or use some kitchen scales for this one! Thanks to Reanna for posting the US conversions for the recipe in the comments below, you can see them here.

For the icing:
500g icing sugar sifted (easiest way to sift is by pulsing in a food processor)
275g salted butter (about 2.5 sticks)
Extra table salt to taste
Optional: sprinkles to decorate

Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F) and grease whatever 18cm round cake tins you have (I only had one so I had to bake each cake one after the other). If you only have 20cm cake tins I'd recommend splitting the batter into only 4 layers instead of 5. Line the base of tins with baking paper and grease paper and dust tins with flour. Combine flour, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl and set aside. Mix milk and vanilla together in a measuring jug.

Using an electric mixer on low speed, beat sugar and butter in a large bowl until blended. Increase speed to high and beat for 2 mins or until pale and creamy. Reduce speed to medium low, add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Alternately add flour mix and milk mixture, beginning and ending with flour mixture (I did it by adding 1/4 of of the dry mixture followed by 1/3 of the wet mixture at a time). Beat until smooth, occasionaly scraping bowl with a spatula. Divide mixture evenly into 5 medium bowls (I did this by measure the batter, it ended up being about 300g per bowl for me). Leave one bowl of batter white, then very gradually add colouring to each bowl and gently fold it into the mixture, adding slightly more colouring as you do each bowl so that the 5 bowls give you a even gradient of colour.

Pour batter into prepared tins and bake each layer for about 15-20 minutes or until a skewer into the centre comes out clean and the outside is golden. Cool in tin for 5 mins and then turn out onto wire racks to cool completely. Prepare the icing; remove butter from fridge 30 mins before starting and chop into small cubes. In a large mixing bowl, beat butter on high with an electric mixer until smooth and fluffy. Reduce speed to medium-low and gradually add icing sugar until combined, then increase speed to high and beat until pale and fluffy. While still mixing, gradually add any extra table salt to taste if needed.

Prepare cake for icing, you may need to trim the tops a bit to make sure they are level. Layer cakes with jam (or more icing). Crumb coat the cake with some of the prepared icing and chill for 15 mins. Cover the cake with more icing, smoothing out with a spatula (I use an offset spatula that I keep clean and warm by running under hot water to get it smoother). If decorating with sprinkles, it can get pretty messy so place your cake in a large container that will catch any of the sprinkles that will run off the cake as you try to stick them on the sides of the cake. Serve cake at room temperature, store cake in the fridge in an airtight container.

216 comments:

Happy Birthday for tomorrow Steph! What a special cake, absolutely beautiful! That person has no idea what they are talking about lol, 60 years? really? I guess one must love sweet things and cakes as much as you do to get it right;)

Happy birthday for tomorrow Steph! This cake definitely sums you up perfectly, I love the gradual shading of purple, so pretty... I think you need to treat yourself with a few more cake tins, it is your birthday afterall :)

I've been quietly following your blog for months, but your birthday deserves a comment! Happy birthday! I'm sorry you've had a horrible week, I hope things get better. Honestly, I'm so glad you made this cake because it made my week a lot brighter! I adore your blog and the recipes you create, can't wait till I have some spare time to try them.In teh meantime, can I ask, how do you get the icing so flat and perfect on your cakes? It looks cemment-leveler flat! Could you maybe do a post on just that? aka How to ice cakes perfectly?Thank you!

Sarah - Thank you so much for your comment, it made my week brighter the way this cake made yours :) I've only recently been getting slightly better icing cakes with a lot of practice. I'm definitely no authority on it, but I found Whisk Kid's tutorial on how to ice a cake extremely useful, you should check it out: http://www.whisk-kid.com/2011/02/how-to-frost-cake.html

I don't know if my previous comment got deleted when I was half way through writing it.

Steph, this cake is AMAZING!!!! I can't believe how neat and perfect it looks!! Gorgeous!!

I'm sorry you've had such a crappy week. I'm glad making this masterpiece distracted you and cheered you up! This is definitely going to be a recipe I try very soon!!! I don't think I've got the patience to use 1 tin and wash it 5 times, so will try to find some cheap tins somewhere so I can make this. I've been wanting to do a layered cake and although I love the rainbow cakes to look at, I think your version looks so much more grown up and more appetizing! I will definitely try it!

Happy Birthday for tomorrow. Hope the coming week (and year!) is full of happiness.

Freaking FREAKING beautiful.. Show stopper marvellous piece of art!! Not a flaw in sight. You've seriously gotten so good at your craft. And I'm sure you'll only keep getting better. I hope you never stop baking/blogging!

This is amazing! I've been wanting to try a colored layer cake for a while! I'm sure the freckles did not quite look as bad as festering warts but your sprinkles definitely look magical. I am so impressed, and happy birthday too!

Happy Birthday! That cake looks fantasmagorical, I love the gradient of the purple. I have real trouble getting a nice purple shade out of the Wilton gels so I am very envious of your beautiful creation. As usual, a perfect creation with impeccable styling and photography.

Happy birthday, and hope the cake was just the beginning of a much better week. Funny how baking can feel like a hassle sometimes till you forget it's what makes the hassle blur into the background. And the cake is just completely awesome and utterly fabulous - a perfect birthday cake, with the combination of subtle shading and gleeful out-there-ness of sprinkles being better than the sum of the parts. Every time I see another of your gorgeous cakes, I'm sure I'd have at least half a dozen squashed experiments to even come close (would love some tips on your perfect icing, too)...

Happy Birthday, sometimes making your own cake is the only way to get what makes YOU happy, hope your week improves and keeps on getting better, only a few more weeks until a new year and a new beginning!

To the most brilliant lady, happy birthday for tomorrow! Your cake is omfg beautiful, awesomely purple and totally you (sprinkles!!!!!). Thanks for being such an amazing friend and can't wait to celebrate with you soon! xxxx

You never fail to come up with absolutely stunning recipes...and make them sound so easy! I'd love to say I'll be giving this a go, but I think I may just have to ogle it from afar and congratulate you on yet another gorgeous post :-) Happy birthday!

OMG THAT CAKE IS EPIC! The purple gradient layers and sprinkles are PERFECT! This cake is better than a professional cake. Happy Birthday Steph, you've excelled yourself again and brightened up my week too =) x

Happy Birthday for tomorrow! This cake looks absolutely amazing – well done for getting the gradient of colours across the layers absolutely perfect on your first try! 60 layers to get it right? Pfffft. :)

Happy Birthday! I've been a silent follower of your blog for some time but this cake, well, I had to say something. And I do follow you on my google reader. Hope you have a great birthday. And ship me a piece of that cake! NY isn't that far!! Enjoy!! Best, Jackie

You've reminded me of a music teacher who used to teach us... she would only wear purple because, her deceased daughter came to her dreams and told her that God wears purple. I think this cake would be perfect for her....

Good on you to bake for yourself to feel better. Cake always makes things good. All the more prefect to do it just the way you want for the big day. Your "festering warts" analogy made my sleepy morning.

I LOVE IT. I think this will be my daughter's 5th birthday cake and her birthday isn't until March LOL She is obsessed with purple and sprinkles :) I will probably do a chocolate frosting with it since she likes it better.

The cake is gorgeous! And I totally get it about having a crappy day. I had the same thing today and started making cupcakes, and suddenly I wasn't thinking about it anymore. I totally know what I want to make for my birthday next year though :)

This looks unbelievably awesome! My friends birthday is coming up and I want to try (key word - try) to make this for where but we're both health nuts so any suggestions on how to make this recipe healthier but still getting the same taste?

I gave into the temptation. :) Mine wound up being a four-layer cake (because I buggered up the bottom layer, whoops) with chocolate buttercream (because why not!). Given that I don't make too many cakes, I'm rather pleased with myself! Unfortunately, I have to wait till tomorrow to cut into it - I'm taking it to a Thanksgiving lunch (I'm in Melbourne, but a friend's American and the rest of us will hop on any excuse to have a big old feast). I think the kids are going to get a real kick out of the bright purple cake!

All of which is a rambling sort of way of saying - thanks for sharing this recipe! It's gorgeous, and I had some fun with it. :)

Oh wow. I just saw this on One Pretty Thing (from Dec. 15/11) and really wish I had seen it when it was originally posted. My birthday was Nov. 16 and I would have really loved this cake for my birthday! :)

You made me make a sprinkle cake, because yours was so gorgeous! See my whole post about the adventure (along with tips on how to create perfectly level cake layers with no cutting and NO WASTE), right here: http://thesexyknitter.blogspot.com/2012/01/flatten-yourcake-layers.html

The Sexy Knitter - Fantastic, great work! Though I can imagine that squishing your cake layers like that might have made them a bit denser and less fluffy than they were before? P.S. I also had my cake on a pedestal, I meant you can put the entire stand with the cake on it inside a big container to catch the spare sprinkles, I did it again recently and it helped a lot!

Hello! Happy Birthday and Beautiful Cake! I have two friends who share a birthday and I'm going to make this for them. I know they'll love it. For my fellow American's I converted the recipe according to this site: http://www.traditionaloven.com/tutorials/conversion.html

I thought I would share so others don't have to do it, please let me know if it needs adjusting.

Beautiful cake! I was wondering, do you eat all your creations or give them away so your waistline doesn't suffer? While looking for Danish/Swedish traditions over the holidays, I happened up the Swedish Princess Cake - google it, you'll find some beautiful pictures and how-tos. I'd love to make one for my birthday but it seems labor-intensive. Eh, I have till October to worry about it.

karlamcurry - I always eat a portion myself, otherwise I wouldn't really be able to write about how it tastes! But I give the majority away to my friends and workmates :) Oh yes, I love love love Princess Cake, I've always wanted to make one!

Helen - Your cake loosk so pretty!! Haha with great difficulty, that's why they went everywhere! I basically placed the whole cake stand in the sink and pressed handfuls of sprinkles up the sides of the cake. It was messy and quite wasteful but I really wanted the whole cake to be covered. But it's not really necessary, all those sprinkles = a very crunchy exterior, which some people might not like.

This is sooo amazing!! Is it okay to leave the other bowls of mix sitting there while you bake the other cakes? I only have 2 tins for this so will do what you did with multiple baking/washing. Do I need to cool the tin before going again aand where do you keep the bowls of mix while they wait? I hope I can make something that looks half as good!!!!!

sojoco - Yes it is totally fine to leave the other bowls sitting on the countertop, I mentioned in the recipe that I only had one cake tin and had to do this. All I did was allow the tin to cool slightly after removing the baked cake, wiped it down a bit with a paper towel, regreased the tin with butter and relined the base with baking paper. Hope that helps!

I made this this evening for my daughter. I thought I'd surprise her when she came home. Mine isn't even close to being as pretty and awesome as yours. The jam that's in between the layers mixed in with the frosting so it looks kinda swirly. Oh well. I'm sure it's edible!!!

I didn't have either size tins. I'm not a big baker so I only had a 22cm (the one you can buy at Ikea) I doubled the batch and made 5 layers and it came out great. Now I'm just worrying about how I'll ever frost it since that is a first too. Thank you for the reciepe it's the perfect thing for my Alice in Wonderland NON bithday party.

Just finished making this cake, it was SO much fun and you're right about the sprinkles! They went EVERYWHERE! I made it for my friends' (twins!) birthday and I can't wait to see their faces tomorrow! Though mine wasn't nearly as perfect as yours! I love your blog and am so glad I found it! Thank you for all your wonderful creations, they are truly inspiring! :)

caster sugar is superfine sugar, using regular white sugar works fine too. read the description in the recipe for how to shade each layer, your batter is for a plain cake and you gradually add more and more colour to each bowl of batter to make it darker.

I made this cake for my sister's birthday yesterday and it was a HUGE hit! Everyone loved it and was so impressed. Thank you so much for sharing this recipe! I can't wait to experiment with different colours.

I am seriously considering making this for my office (5 of us have birthdays next week). Any thoughts on how this would be with a chocolate mousse between the layers and chocolate frosting? Our office LOVES chocolate.

Chocolate frosting is fine but I'm not sure if the chocolate mousse will be strong enough to handle the weight of te cake layers. They are pretty heavy, you can see if you look closely that the weight was enough to squash the bottom layer down quite a bit.

I used this recipe last night for my practice cake for Fetal Fest which will be in July (my baby shower, I just hate calling it that). I never bake, so I wasn't expecting perfection, but I was pleased with my end result. I would love to know what the secret is to getting a flat cake. My icing didn't turn out anything like this, but it was still good. I'm in Kentucky, so maybe I didn't translate all the sugars correctly, but I tried. Here's a link to view my cake pics :) Thanks so much, this cake is like heaven. http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.858744238010.2221150.50906768&type=1

Haha Fetal Fest! So glad you liked the cake, here are some of the tips I use to get my layers flatter:1. Adjust the oven temp - I use a non-fan oven so it runs a little cooler than most fan-forced ones. Doming will be worse temperature is too hot, so try dropping the temp 5 degrees and baking it for a little longer to see if that helps

2. Trim the tops of your cake - it seems wasteful but just shaving a little off the middle of the top of each cake to get rid of some of the unavoidable dome shape makes a big difference.

3. Alternate the direction you sandwich each layer - I always start with the bottom layer facing right way up, and then sandwich the next layer upsidedown on top, I find this helps to balance it out better than if you have all the layers facing right way up.

hi! your cakes are awesome and i love your blog. i'd like to know if this cake is sufficient for about 20 servings. making it for my parents' anniversary and we have about 20 guests. if not then what additions do i make to the recipe? a reply would be much appreciated!

Anonymous - Hmm that's a bit tricky! I think you usually get about 12 decent slices out of this cake. You could definitely try doubling the recipe and baking each layer in a larger round tin (20cm or bigger) so that you end up with a taller cake? That should be enough for 20 people. I hope that helps!

Thank you so much for this recipe. I made it for my grandma's birthday and not only was the recipe super easy to follow, it turned out just like in your pics! Got so many compliments from the family! LOVE THIS BLOG! Ps wish I could figure out how to attach pics to this comment. I would love to show you the end product!

LOVE LOVE LOVE how this cake looks! I'm sure it's quite tasty too! I have pinned your recipe on Pinterest and plan to make one for my son's birthday party that's coming up. So this may be a very silly question ... but where did you get your sprinkles? I have been searching for the perfect color combination of sprinkles and I cannot find ones like yours! Yours appear to be more vibrant and have lighter colors! The ones I've found are usually a mix of light and dark colors. I just NEED to get these same sprinkles!! :)

Jennifer - Not sure if I can help you, I'm all the way in Australia and I just bought my sprinkles from the grocery store. Maybe try searching online at cake decorating websites? Sorry I can't help more!

I LOVE this cake, and I'm planning to make it next month for my soon-to-be sister-in-law's bridal shower. I haven't tried this icing recipe, and the name makes me nervous. Is it basically just traditional tasting buttercream?

LOL no reason to be nervous about it! It's just regular frosting that uses salted butter instead of unsalted. It's one I use all the time because the salt helps balance against all the sweetness of the icing sugar and the cake. If you prefer you can use unsalted butter and gradually add very small amounts of salt to the icing until you are happy with the taste.

Hi Adelyn, you can definitely cut down on the icing sugar a fair bit as this icing is very stiff. Cutting down on the icing sugar should make it easier to pipe as well. Just gradually add icing sugar to the mixture until you are happy with the texture. I'm posting a plain vanilla bean icing later today that is great for piping.

Cream cheese does make the icing very soft, I usually add an equal amount of butter to the mixture to help it stay stiff. I hope that helps!

Just finished making this cake! I am not a baker, and have a rather temperamental oven as so was really not sure how it would turn out, but I had a default chocolate cake to turn on in case of disaster!!!Your instuctions were so clear, and easy to follow (and the pictured were such a help), that I am left with a cake that looks exactly how it should...I'm rather proud of myself.I used the sprinkles that are softer (the longer ones) to prevent that super crunchy effect that hundreds and thousands do. You are right though...what a mess...but what fun!Will email you some pics after we cut it tomorrow!

How fantastic! Great idea using the softer sprinkles, the crunch of the non-pareils is annoying but I had to overlook it on this particular occasion because I love them so! Looking forward to seeing your photos of your cake! xx

I've just found this recipe and my heart started to beat faster - I think I'm in love. I have guests this weekend and am planning to make this but cover it with fondant icing and then tie a purple ribbon around the middle of it and decorate the top with frosted violets/icing flowers. Thanks for sharing!

Hey! I'm a huge fan of your purple ombre cake recipe. I think I've used it ever since I found it. I joke not...I tried it out with blue instead and it looked and tasted AMAZING!Then I tried it in chocolate, vanilla and lemon curd (I had a lemon craze two months ago) and this is what came out!http://tatianah10.wordpress.com/2012/04/29/chocolate-lemon-curd-vanilla-checkered-cake/I took it when I stayed over a friends Uni here in England and we all sat around the kitchen table eating it bit by bit with our fingers. Elegantly, of course :P

A friend and I made this last night for another friend's birthday but instead of purple, we used blue. Turned out awesome! The sprinkles were definitely a challenge, but it looked so good that it was totally worth it!

Thanks so much for the idea and the amazing recipes... keep them coming!

I discovered your blog only a few days ago and when I saw the pictures of this amazing cake, it was love at first sight. The timing of my discovery was perfect, as the 16th birthday of my fiance's daughter was coming and we were planing a surprise party for her...and I so wanted to wow her and to impress my fiance's family. I was so excited when I even found the same food colouring as in your receipe...the uncooked batter, looked amazing! just as in your pictures....but when I took the cakes out of the oven: what a disaster!!! they turned green-ish...I'm not talking about beautiful radiant green, but more like moldy carpet green!!! How is that possible??? what did I do wrong?? can you specify how you measure this food colouring gel? and how much did you use for each layer??I still went ahead with the cake, covered it as in the recipe and served it...unfortunately this cake turned into the joke of the evening...and my future mother-in-law simply commented: at least my son will not put on weight with you and your cakes! Nice! :( I so would love to fix that and do this cake again, but this time to impress everyone....Please help!Thanks

Oh no! I'm so sorry it didn't turn out as you had hoped. I've honestly got no idea why your cakes would turn green! To be clear, this is the colouring that I used: http://www.wilton.com/store/site/product.cfm?id=3e30b2d9-475a-bac0-5d5c3db846dfd354 and I honestly couldn't tell you how much I used for each layer, I did it completely by eye, but if I had to estimate I think I would have used no more than 1/2 tsp of colouring the darkest layer. I have no idea what would cause it to turn green, maybe it reacted with your cake pans somehow? I've seen many others who have re-used this recipe successfully, and if you check my latest post you'll see I used the exact same recipe and still got the same vibrant colours.

Hi StephThis cake is AMAZING!!!! I've made it twice now. Once in February as a purple ombré cake and again this past weekend as a vanilla cake with sprinkles inside (based on a 'Funfetti' cake). It was great both times and it is now my go to cake recipe.

I'm wanting to know if you have tried making cupcakes from this recipe. Do they rise much? I've found that the layers in this cake don't rise very much but when all five layers are stacked you get a high cake so it doesn't matter that each individual doesn't rise very much. This cake recipe is so great, light and fluffy that I really want it to be my go to cupcake recipe as well.

I also must say that I LOVE your blog. I've also made the fruit tingle cake and I plan on making the iced vovo cake really soon.

This is cake is simply beautiful. I attempted it over the weekend however the cake came out kind of... tough. Like, not very fluffy. When you add the milk & flour alternatively, should you just mix it through slowly with a spoon, or with fast with beaters? My cake also seemed to have a lot of little holes in it! Tasted okay though :) Would like to attempt it again, but how can I improve the texture of the cake? Thanks Steph!

Hi Anonymous - if your cake was dense with lots of large air pockets them you might not have evenly distributed your baking powder through the cake batter. I'd recommend sifting your dry mixture a couple of times to ensure it's mixed well before adding it to the batter. And avoid mixing the batter for too long after you add the flour, just long enough that the mixture is smooth.

Oh man, I pinned this from Pinterest, and the time has come to use it. This weekend is my daughter's 5th birthday party, and yes, I chose your cake recipe for the occasion! I'm going to do my best to get some pictures, and then I'll post them of the finished result on my blog: happyshabbyhippy.blogspot.com! thanks for posting this amazing piece of art ;)

This is beautiful! Good call on the violet coloring--I made icing recently and thought "blue and red = purple, no problem!" The color looked terrible and I ended up converting the "purple" icing to black! Lesson learned for next time :)

This cake is so amazing that I just had to give it a go. Not quite as beautiful but it took a lot of work. This is how my version looked in the end http://wheellove.tumblr.com/post/38971852071/oh-my-pink-ombre-cake

I usually trim the tops of my cakes before assembling them into layers, it's hard to avoid a small amount of doming on top. But you can also try reducing your oven temperature slightly, as cakes tend to dome more if the oven is too hot. Hope that helps!

This is beautiful. Would be good for my daughter-in-law's birthday. She loves purple. I have to work out how I can keep following you. Thank you for showing your beautiful cakes. I loved the daisies on your burnt butter cake.Helen S.

I'm so glad to have discovered this gorgeous, yet simply explained, Purple Ombre Sprinkle Cake on Facebook (picture and link posted by More-ish Cupcakes). I was first attracted by the sprinkles, but am so in love with the varying degrees of purple in the cake itself. Will be pinning this so I'll always have it on hand.

Hi Steph, I'm making this for a friend's birthday - looks amazing! How much of it can be made the night before? Should I make the cakes & the icing the night before and then assemble on the day, or make the whole thing the night before & refrigerate?

Yeah it's not easy...just make sure you place your cake stand in a large container with high sides to catch all the bouncing sprinkles! Other than that it seemed to work best when I pressed a handful of sprinkles on the side of a cake at a time rather than trying to 'sprinkle it' on to the cake. Hope that makes sense!

Hay Steph, I really really want to try to make this cake for my daughters birthday. You will be able to tell that I am not a baker by the following question, so please excuse me: Could I use flour with the baking powder and salt already in it (that is what I have at home) or would the cake work better as per interactions above? I never know what difference it makes and I really want the cake to turn out as well as possible :-)

Comments are moderated and will be published ASAP. If you are viewing this on your phone, you might have to click the Preview button before posting your comment for it to work. People who comment make my day! ♥

An email to me for permission before reusing my images/recipes on your blog or website will be greatly appreciated, and you must must must credit me with a link back to the original post(that doesn't mean the front page) if you reuse any of my content. My photos and recipes CANNOT be used for commercial purposes without my written consent. DO NOT POST MY PHOTOS ON INSTAGRAM. There are no means to sufficiently credit me and I will report any photos posted on instagram as copyright infringement.